


Canary

by henrywinter (bakkhant)



Category: French Revolution RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Robespierre, Prison, The Terror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8326987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakkhant/pseuds/henrywinter
Summary: How Robespierre and Marie-Thérèse's interaction in the Temple prison might have gone.





	

When he visits, he is determined not to pity her. He does not expect to, but he remembers her mother – remembers how she stood before the Tribunal, choked with despair at the loss of her title, her lands, her husband. _I have nothing left but my blood_ , she had said, grief thickening her voice, and still, in the same breath – _I appeal to the heart of every mother who hears me._ No mother had heard her; only men who knew she posed too great a danger to the fragile Republic they had worked so hard to build. And yet, he had seen their faces: whilst he hadn’t believed that Marie Antoinette had molested her son, he had not been moved, but no mask of Republican fervour could disguise their weakness, to be so touched by the righteousness of a woman who had lost everything but her pride. Her daughter, ultimately, is no different.

 

The Tower has improved her, he thinks, casting an eye over her books. _Voyages, the Imitation of Christ_ ; he is satisfied that they will teach her piety, just as her time imprisoned seems to have taught her humility. She shrinks from his scrutiny when he turns his eyes back to her, but sits straighter on her stool and holds her chin high, more from habit and breeding than defiance, he allows, to ask him, _who are you?_

 

He does not answer, continuing his search, and rather than discourage her, this seems to give her confidence. _Is my mother well,_ she says, _it’s been such a long time since I last heard from her._ Wily and conniving at heart, she tries to appeal to his sympathy next, as he had suspected she would. _At least I hear_ _Élisabeth_ _and my brother when they cry._ He allows himself a moment’s indulgence, and considers that just as her mother knew she was headed for the guillotine, she must know that no woman’s tears would sway him. She is not weeping yet, but he knows it is only a matter of time: in Arras, the women – poor, desperate and scorned by other lawyers – had sometimes sobbed for gratitude when he defended them; here in Paris, it is not uncommon for the guilty to spend their last breaths wailing.

_My brother is sick,_ she pleads. _I wrote to the Convention for permission to take care of him, but they haven’t replied._ Her voice is thin; it is easy to ignore her. _I know you are important, because the officers treat you with such respect._ It is unsurprising that she should think he has any vanity to appeal to, he reflects grimly, and spares her one last glance before turning to leave.

 

Then, _please._ She moves to stand, a hand stretched towards him in supplication. Behind him, the guards shift, and darting her eyes towards them warily, she stays where she is, hand falling back to her side. _He’s sick,_ she repeats, louder now. For just a second, she sounds like her mother. _He’s sick and they’re still hurting him. Please, he’s only nine._

 

If this gives him pause for just a fraction of a second, the officers do not notice: he walks away in time to the tramping of their boots. He does not visit the boy. There is work to do, always work to do to sustain this revolution he sometimes fears may never be complete, and enemies’ plots to preempt. He knows he has done right, that there is nothing else he would possibly do if given another chance, but Danton and Camille still weigh heavy in his mind. He does not look back, wavering, when he hears her begin to sob, quiet and defeated; he does not turn back to tell her the woman that her mother is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Marie-Thérèse was fourteen at this point.
> 
> Her brother Louis was in solitary confinement, with only three canaries for company before they were taken away for being 'too aristocratic'. Which was, excessive.


End file.
